Abstract
The epistemology of abstract objects is a somewhat neglected topic in contemporary philosophy. I argue that a satisfactory account of our capacity for knowing abstract objects must consist in more than formal requirements. It must also comprise an investigation of the nature of the relevant processes of belief formation, notably the mental process known as intuition. A promising approach is what I call “constructionism” (not to be confused with antirealist forms of constructivism), the main ideas of which can be found in Kant, Peirce, Husserl and contemporary cognitive scientists like Laird-Johnson and Kosslyn. According to constructionism, we come to know complex abstract objects by carrying out processes of mental construction or performing mental experiments on the contents of lower-order mental acts. I discuss the strengths and limitations of the theory and suggest some possible further developments.
© Philosophia Press 2006
